Q:You play a number of instruments. What sort of formal training did you have?

A:Only on trumpet. I picked up that in elementary school. That’s the only instrument. My grandmother died and I was given her accordion. So instruments started to collect in the house and I started to figure them out. Even the voice. It sounds ridiculous, but I literally just figured it out one day.

Q:It is a very distinct sounding voice, and perhaps the only constant on all your albums.

A:Yeah. I would say it probably is the most import part at this time. It’s the most personal. Music can be sort of twisted in that it is sort of pulling emotions out of people. But the voice can do it the most because it is what everyone can relate to and that’s where the most emotion in music comes out of, just these subtle little vocal twists on melody and that’s the thing you become fascinated with and can’t explain why. That’s why I consider it the most important instrument.

Q: Before Beirut, you called yourself Realpeople?

A:Yeah, that’s where Realpeople name came from. It was just bedroom recordings. I had a bunch of names. Beirut itself comes from a whole list of city names I was using. I was quite serious when I said I was recording a song a night. It was like couldn’t go to sleep unless I had a new hook to listen to before I went to sleep and be proud of having accomplished something. So, I was writing so many songs that it got to the point where naming them would be ridiculous and I was literally pointing at a map and saying, “This week my name is Bilbao, and the next album is going to be called Hamburg,and the first song is going to be called Venice,”

Q:And why was it city names?

A: I think this was sort of the childhood fantasy of being a world traveler. I grew up in a small town in New Mexico and ever kid looks up to these sort of Tintin or Indiana Jones characters hopping around the world. So it was more of me sort of trying to invent the persona for myself via city names I’ve never been to.

Q: So, when you were 17, you finally had a chance to stretch your legs and you went to Paris. What happened there?

A: Not a whole lot. It wasn’t a huge epiphany or anything like that. I mean, mostly it was just a drunken trip to Paris. But there were a few things that stuck in my mind and that was a lot of the instruments I found myself around and the sounds I heard there.